Davis, CA – Linda Deos will be sworn in on Tuesday. Will Arnold, having served this community for eight years, will step down, having decided earlier this year not to seek a third term.
One thing that struck me last week was how contested the homeless encampment issue actually was for the city council.
In November, speaking on another issue, Arnold noted, “I recognize that this is the last city council meeting where I will be able to speak about this project as a city council member.”
As it turns out the homeless issue becomes one of the last things that Will Arnold acted on as a councilmember.
I want to be clear there is nothing improper here about Councilmember Arnold voting on the second reading. But what strikes me is that this was a 3-2 vote by council, and it seems clear now that his successor views the issue somewhat differently than did Councilmember Arnold.
For most of the last 15 years, the council has gone away from what was a very contentious council from 2006 to 2010, where 3-2 votes on major issues were the norm, not the exception. And they’ve gone to a consensus-based approach where they mostly have avoided the 3-2 votes—and even 4-1 votes have been fairly rare.
This is the exception to that, with Donna Neville and Bapu Vaitla being in opposition and Will Arnold joined by Mayor Josh Chapman and Gloria Partida in the majority.
In her comments, Deos raised some of the same concerns I have: “But I don’t know if I can trust the person coming in 10 years or five years or in six months if something changes in that regard. I think it’s so important to be able to put into an ordinance exactly where our parameters are, what we allow as a community and what we think is important as a community.”
More importantly, she seemed to support some of the suggestions that Councilmember Neville made and suggested, “I think we could take another look at this and perhaps not rush to do this second reading this evening so we have some more time to look at councilmember Neville’s ideas and discuss more with staff as far as where those parameters could be with regard to how do we inform on what the shelter options are, what do we talk about as far as the type of notice we have 72 hour, 48 hour notice and the penalty provision.”
A critical point, one that I have also raised, is that a misdemeanor on someone’s record can preclude housing.
While Deos clearly noted that the council should think more about these issues, one point she didn’t make is that perhaps it would have been wise let her vote on this issue once seated rather than a “lame duck” council making what is clearly a very narrowly divided decision.
Again, I do not say that in any way to disparage Will Arnold or the council, it is just on this particular issue you have a 3-2 split and a new councilmember coming on at the next meeting who is not aligned with the outgoing councilmember.
I think it would have been wiser for the council in this specific case to have held over the second reading, allow for Deos to weigh in as a councilmember and let the new council address this most difficult issue.
Part of the problem is that it is hard to undo this. The requirements for visiting a recent vote include one of the people who voted in favor of it to ask for it to be reconsidered. That means that at the next meeting either Josh Chapman or Gloria Partida would have to call for a reconsideration, and they frankly have no reason to do that.
So we are where we are—while the council has done a good job of making at least the council process less contentious, this was simply a difficult issue that might have been handled in a better way.
